The Witness begins in a long, dark tunnel. You are moving toward a light along whitewashed walls, concave like a squinted eye. The first puzzle in this puzzle game is one of perspective: Am I going up, or forward?
There is, in this case, an easy path to a solution: Come out the other side and look behind you.
Not that this is one of the game's "true" puzzles, of which developer Jonathan Blow says there are nearly 700. But it shares a key element with everything that comes after. As in all of the The Witness I've experienced so far, the only answer you're likely to get is the one you make yourself.
More than five years in the making, The Witness is the second game from indie developer Blow, whose breakout 2008 hit Braid arguably ushered in the modern indie games movement. To say people have high expectations for The Witness, coming Tuesday on PC and PlayStation 4, is an understatement. I'm not convinced that Braid has aged well---so many of its ideas have folded so neatly into the "indie aesthetic," so far as such a thing exists, that it feels almost unremarkable eight years later. But Braid positioned Blow as a controversial and important studio. Its successor has the dual pressures of being good and reaffirming the legitimacy of Blow's standing in the gaming world.
Given all the pressure, it's hard not to imagine The Witness as an answer to Blows' detractors. In response, the game gives you a tunnel, and then an island. Lush, overgrown with foliage in impossibly bright hues, and quiet. No background music, no voices. A bird, here and there. The pull and push of the tide somewhere in the distance. You are utterly alone.
This song, 'The Witness Is Driving Me Insane', expertly intertwines thrilling melodies with haunting lyrics that leave a mesmerizing aftermath upon the listener's mind.
